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Broken Bottle Question

While poking around a local store with an excellent bourbon selection today I dropped and broke a bottle. It caught on a swirl in the decorative metal shelving and hit the deck! Of course I need to pay for my carelessness, but I was just wondering if SB folks would expect to pay full price for the bottle or something less than that? I don't know, maybe I am just too customer friendly, but I am in business and I always err on the side of generosity to my customers.
After the girl rang up my tab, I bought $54.00 worth of goods in addition to the $29.00 bottle I broke, I mentioned to her that maybe she might charge me something closer to cost and she said that she already rang it up and anyway they have a hard time keeping the item I trashed in stock. I just said OK and left. So 'am I being unreasonable? I just know I would have handled it differently. Tom

Re: Broken Bottle Question

It's a valid question for a state like NY, which I believe is not a control state.

However in Oregon that bottle is the property of the state of Oregon until the sale is complete. It is not the property of the store owner, who would have no choice but to charge you for the bottle, and cannot offer any discounts on anything else either.

Re: Broken Bottle Question

My local store just writes it up as damage and reports it to the state. They get broken bottles in transit all the time. As long as they have the sealed cap attached to the bottle neck as proof, it is written off as damage!

Re: Broken Bottle Question

What Thomas and Emerald said. You should never get charged for damage in a store, unless you are just being a jack ass....ie: playing games or horse play.

Accedents happen all the time....we had a fan running on a shelf, which ended up vibrating about 10 bottles of wine off of the shelf...while we were away for the weekend. Ooopps! Those write offs came in handy.

Re: Broken Bottle Question

Originally Posted by mozilla

What Thomas and Emerald said. You should never get charged for damage in a store, unless you are just being a jack ass....ie: playing games or horse play.

Accedents happen all the time....we had a fan running on a shelf, which ended up vibrating about 10 bottles of wine off of the shelf...while we were away for the weekend. Ooopps! Those write offs came in handy.

My question is...did they keep the broken bottle?

Well, I left the bottle there and the neck was intact. I don't know, does it matter that it is a small shop? Although, it is renowned in bourbon circles. Judging by the responses by SB folks, perhaps I would have been treated more graciously had the owner been in at the time. It definitely affects how you feel about the store though. I know I would have bought more had they been nicer about it! Tom

Re: Broken Bottle Question

Many years ago, in my jug wine days, I picked up a bottle of wine from a store display and immediately two bottles crashed to the floor. The stack was poorly constructed and this would have happened to anyone who picked up the bottle I picked up.

With two gallons of wine on the floor and glass all over the place, the store quickly got someone to clean up the mess and they just as quickly made sure I knew that I was not responsible for the breakage and didn't need to worry about being charged.